This past week @flowerbaby and I took a trip to Hocking Hills, Ohio. The place was only a few hours from where we live and the drive was pretty peaceful along the way. I had been there once before with some friends in the past, but it had been a few years; plus @flowerbaby was dying to go.

Once we got there, our first stop was Old Man’s Cave. We were greeted by a 99% full parking lot, we had to circle through it twice just to find a space. There were so many people with their kids & pets, so was not the usual solitudinous hike we enjoy. I can say with complete honesty that we did not have one moment of total silence while we were exploring. There were kids screaming, dogs pulling their owners through the trail, and just way too many people in general. You may not being able to tell from our photos, we did our best to crop out innocent bystanders.

There were many signs aiming to keep people from actually venturing to different locations off trail. It felt to me like there were too many rules, which made it feel far less natural. Almost like an outdoor museum of sorts, not a good look for a nature trail. Don’t get me started on the fact that the waterfalls were dried out; a total bummer.

We still got some awesome photos and enjoyed some of the spectacular landscape, but we were a little but let down with this one. Thankfully we still had each other, which made the whole experience worthwhile. We also had some Krispy Kreme Doughnuts to munch on after we finished.